


I am a Queen

by Ferrane



Series: Mergana in Words [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:29:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28893693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferrane/pseuds/Ferrane
Summary: My previous short story, ‘An Accolade to Morgana Pendragon’, was a character study on the main antagonist from the protagonist’s perspective.I decided to rewrite the scenes of my previous story, this time from Morgana’s perspective.Additional romance scenes between Merlin and Morgana, which I speculate upon but definitely did not take place, have been added into the story.
Relationships: Merlin/Morgana (Merlin)
Series: Mergana in Words [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756156
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	I am a Queen

The Triple Goddess wept the day my life was taken. It wasn’t the destiny that had been intended for me, not by the Goddess, Aithusa the last dragon, or myself. Magic had died that day, and the one most at fault had walked free.

The first offender was King Uther Pendragon: my guardian and my biological father. The King of Camelot who brought an end to the terror of the witches and warlocks from the ages before. He painted all those with magic, all creatures born of magic, as vicious, psychotic murderers. He tore apart families and destroyed lives without remorse. His tyranny spread throughout the lands, marking innocent people for slaughter. None could escape his madness. Be it the aging or the new-born – they were all evil in his eyes.

I wanted him to suffer as we had all suffered. To know what it was like to be alone and afraid, to be disgusted with who and what you are. To look in the mirror and wish for nothing but your own demise, because it must be, it _has_ to be better than living.

Then, there was Prince Arthur Pendragon: a boy with his breeches on backwards. My foolish half-brother who was as much a curse upon the land as his father was.

Inhuman, evil, _magical_. Countless excuses he gave for the continued butchery of my people.

The Once and Future King, the wielder of the holy sword, Excalibur, chosen by the Lady of the Lake and blessed by the God of Life. The figure at the forefront of the eradication of an entire race.

Did he know what it was like, to flee for your life because you healed the leg of an abandoned foal? To gift water to the thirsty and have a noose tightened around your neck? To give a barren mother a son and a king an heir and be fed to wolves? For a prince, who had never lost anything, had always been given whatever he wished for, to understand our pain…it was impossible.

And then he began speaking of change and a magic filled future where none must fear and he killed and killed and killed until the blood overflowed from his goblet. Peace and prosperity, he said. Death to the different, he meant.

Oh, but the worst, the undisputed most hypocritical being to have ever walked the earth is none other than the great and powerful, the mighty and just, last Warlock of Destiny: Merlin. Emrys. Ambrosius.

Time and time again, Arthur’s loyal manservant proved that he was willing to sacrifice hundreds, thousands of innocent lives – the lives of his kin – for the arrogant prince. Do not be fooled by his kind smile nor swayed by his unchanging heart. He is a traitor to magic. One blessed undeservingly and the only one to survive the end of our time.

I trusted him once, believed in his vision. In the light in his eyes that burned amber when he spoke of the world we would build together. In the way his cheeks dimpled when he smiled too hard and how it would soften preciously when he spoke of his mother and childhood friend. In the cheekiness he adopted out of sight of the King, making fun of Arthur and sending Gwen and I into fits of laughter. In the way he stumbled over his words the first time we spoke, his eyes never once leaving mine. To the days we spent holding one another in the castle alcoves and the whispers we exchanged within the safety of the forest. The meadowsweet that sat upon my windowsill and neither slept nor withered. Upon first sight of him, I have remembrance of a wondrously, fluttery feeling befalling me.

He then ran me through with a sword.

“His story is now one of legend.” The bell rang, interrupting the professor. “We’ll delve further into the prophecy itself tomorrow. Bring your Encyclopaedia of Prophecy textbooks so that we can compare Arthurian to others. Have a good day everyone.”

He works with students now, as though he has any right to influence future generations. In the five years he has spent lecturing at Southampton University, preaching the _Arthurian Legends_ , he hasn’t aged a second. The gift of immortality.

They fawn over Merlin and Arthur, glorifying them as heroes, even though they accomplished nothing. They didn’t build Albion, they didn’t save magic, they didn’t even protect one another. All they did was kill me. Since when did murder make you a hero?

Now they write essays, they study our lives, analysing every inch – and they can’t see the truth.

They call me an enchantress, curse my title as a witch. The fallen princess, the wicked queen, the greatest evil the world had ever seen. But why? Why was it so wrong to fight for justice? Why had I been born a woman, born out of rape, the illegitimate first child of a King? Is there a need to hate my being so, when they will never know the whole story? I, who had everything taken from me. I, who’s birth father killed my true parents and destroyed my bloodless family. I, who was betrayed by men who claimed my heart and was chased out of my home. Is it that I was born a woman that my fate was to fail? If I were ambitious as a man, would I have been labelled a villain?

I wonder as to whether I am awake. I pass now, through the times, in silent awareness. My voice has been taken from me; my movement restricted. I am but Merlin’s shadow. The living corpse at his back.

In the years that followed the 14th century, Merlin travelled the world; observing civilisations both great and small, rise and fall. He watched as people lived and died, some with hearts kinder than others, but each with a mortal flame. He spoke of King Arthur’s _tragic_ death – a great destiny cut short by evil’s hand. He watched as Aithusa perished without kin, the death of the last dragon. He watched as magic was twisted from fact and reality, to fiction and fantasy. We both watched magic fade from this world, and our legacies became legend.

He never speaks of poisoning me, of pushing me down the stairs, stealing my magic from me and killing my sister. He paints Morgause, Mordred and I as malevolent beings who sought the end of the world; when all we wanted was to set magic free, to walk unafraid in our own skin. He is the one who hid his magic, allowed the death of his brethren in his own house and reaped the benefits in plenty. Funny how he’s the only one left standing.

Once, in the early years that I can’t rightly recall, Merlin visited my grave. I had expected him to spit on it, to dig up my body, to curse at my unmarked square. But he just cried. He fell to his knees, and cried.

He left the lecture hall in a hurry, his books tucked under his arms. He seemed unsettled, shaken. Had he seen something?

His home now is small, an apartment in a decent part of town, with enough windows for light. I take up my space in the corner of the room, as he retrieves his cigarettes from his pocket and fetches a glass and a bottle of whiskey from a cupboard. With a sigh that was worth centuries more years than his appearance allowed, Merlin sank into his couch with reminiscent comfort. I watch him in contemplative silence, wondering as to the thoughts of a guilty man.

He’s staring at the white wall across from him, as though all his questions will be answered if he stares hard enough. His hair is ragged and unkempt now, and if I hadn’t followed him home, I would have thought he had gotten into a fight with the wind. It makes me want to reach out and touch it, touch him, hold him…like we were still in the past. Like nothing had ever changed.

But I am forced to do nothing but watch – trapped between mortality and fate. But I know he sees me. I know he sees me.

A change. Something new, something different. A shift in the air so subtle I would have missed it had I not been waiting.

For the first time since my death, I step away from Merlin. The chains that had bound me to his being suddenly non-existent. The wheels to destiny once more in motion. Magic filtering through the earth and resurfacing into the world of the living. A big, box of secrets unlatched and pried open. Freedom. _Freedom_.

A glass shatters behind me and I know Merlin must have felt it too.

It was a race now; that I was certain: to the island that stands where endless fog once rolled, to the lake where Arthur was laid to rest.

Magic is reviving, hope is swelling – my destiny awaits.

**Author's Note:**

> Merlin had a huge impact on me and my understanding of equality and discrimination growing up, as it discussed the prejudice magic users faced from the non-magical community. That weapons and magic were but tools and only the person, wielding either sword or magic could be at fault. Not the tool. Never the victim. 
> 
> The antagonist, Morgana, is the character I felt I most related to, as a person who is discriminated against because of her differences and then turns to the dark side when she feels abandoned and isolated by everyone else. Whilst I don't think I would ever wage a war against the non-magical community (ergo anyone who isn't black or female like I am) I can't view Morgana as solely a villain. Something that is reflected in the Arthurian Legends as Morgana constantly changes from villain, to helpful fae/prophet, to promiscuous half-sister, to murderous witch. 
> 
> I wrote this to acknowledge that Morgana was damaged, and I don't believe it was her fault she turned out the way she did. The choices that she made, even if they were her own in the end, were limited to begin with. It was a self fulfilling prophecy, and Merlin, Gaius and Kilgharrah were counting the days.


End file.
